Bill McBean, author of The Facts of Business Life: What Every Successful Business Owner Knows that You Dont, spent many of his nearly forty years as a successful business owner in the automobile industry where, among many other achievements, he purchased several underperforming dealerships and turned them into a successful business enterprise with yearly sales of more than $160 million. Since selling the company to the world's largest automotive retailer, AutoNation, McBean has been involved in several new businesses, including McBean Partners, an investment and business mentoring company, and Net Claims Now, which provides administrative services and support to the restoration industry.

I should have fired my first employee long before I did. If there was one area where my inexperience really showed when I started running my own business it was in not firing people who should have been let go. I naively believed that, more or less, everyone was like...

So the Christmas selling season is over, post-Christmas sales have ended, and New Year's resolutions are just kicking in. In other words, 2014 has just begun. January may not be the busiest month for entrepreneurs, or would-be entrepreneurs, but it's the month that the "Should I?" questions get asked more...

What is my business worth? It's a question I've asked myself hundreds of times over my 40-year long ownership career. And valuing your business, as an exercise, is a great thing to do from time to time -- it gets you thinking and dreaming, which is not a bad thing....

In the late 1980s, when I first read Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, I learned a number of things that I've used throughout my ownership career. (In fact, it's why I still recommend the book to young businesspeople today!) One of the most important of these...

Every business owner knows that satisfying -- and retaining -- customers is as important as anything they do to achieve and maintain success. They, as well as most of their employees, understand that customers coming back time and time again translates into both business stability and job security. However, I...

The goal of most entrepreneurs is to win big! Unfortunately, most businesses fail or struggle for years before making money. Often struggling business owners skip over or ignore two important concepts that successful owners know.

First, as a business owner you have to define what success means to you. For...

Remember that song "The Circle of Life" from The Lion King? It reminds us that everyone is born, grows up, gets older, and eventually passes away. While you might not need a biology class to understand all of that, you might need a business lesson to teach you how much...

If you're a business owner, and have survived the last half dozen years or so, you have gone through a lot, including an economic crash, and a slow economic rebound. Currently, you may be feeling a little more secure than a few years ago, but cautious on your optimism for...

The sad truth is that less than 30 percent of businesses last more than 10 years, and most failures occur in the first few years of operation. Some businesses are doomed from the start due to lack of planning or lack of working capital. Still others (the majority) fail from...

If I could start over, I would separate issues like opportunity, business growth, improvement, and threats, etc., into two categories: external and internal. By separating them, they become much more manageable and easier to focus on, and I think knowing that back when I was starting out would have been...

Despite the statistics on high failure rates or the many news stories about business closings, many do survive and thrive. They survive so long and do so well that they, at times, outlast their owners' energy and interest in the company. Figuring out how to exit a business usually brings...

When most of us think about sports, we think about winning and glory. Scoring the last-second, game-winning goal. Standing on the podium with an Olympic gold medal around our neck. Pouring Gatorade on the coach after winning the national championship. We don't spend much time thinking about all of the...

Remember that song "The Circle of Life" from The Lion King? It reminds us mortal humans how similar we all are. We are born, grow up, get older, and eventually pass away. That's just life. And while you might not need a biology class to understand all of that, you...

If you're an entrepreneur or an entrepreneur-hopeful, it's probably difficult to keep those four words from causing you to second guess your every move as you plan and run your business. They become especially hard to ignore when you consider the fact that less than 30...

The confetti has fallen, the ball has dropped, and the champagne has been popped -- 2012 is officially over, and 2013 is underway. For many business owners, that means doing a post-mortem on their businesses by looking back at what went right and what went wrong in the year gone...